Vol. I No. 6

I very clearly remember the first time I heard the self-titled first LP by Violent Femmes, a band from Milwaukee, in 1983.

This album has the most terrifying, horrific, Gothic and tragic quality that one can possibly imagine. Clearly inspired by punk rock, and yet much or most of the instrumentation is non-electrified. The three members of the band were all around 20 years old or less as far as I know.

I believe the advent of Violent Femmes and their first record was a manifestation of the collective consciousness concerning the imminent termination of sales of all-analog recordings precisely at that time.

I was in the Salisbury dormitory of Burton-Judson Hall at the University of Chicago when I heard this record being played very loudly in a neighboring room. I was astonished at the high drama of the performance: the anger, the great animosity, the rabid tone of condemnation and resentment. I thought "What sort of music is this?!"

Many years later I purchased a cassette of Violent Femmes' first record which I only years after that learned was in fact a digitally processed re-issue of the original. I listened to it several times, trying to experience the great power of the record as I had known it before but was unable to do so.

I do not understand what is the mechanism - the how and why - of collective consciousness that would cause this band to emerge precisely at the time of the demise of analog audio - the end of music as we knew it, or, if you will, the day the music died.

But the fact that it did so, and that it sounds like a scream of terror and rage, suggests to me the very great import of this digital versus analog audio technology issue.